"9/11 as it entered the American psyche — helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us all. The resulting United States of Fear has since engaged in two disastrous more-than-trillion dollar wars and a “Global War on Terror” that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime”.

I DO NOT KNOW OF A BETTER SAMPLE OF OBAMA’S DUPLICITY THAN THIS VIDEO. GO TO THE 3:00 MARK AND LISTEN TO WHAT OBAMA HAD TO SAY AS A SENATOR AND PUT THAT UP AGAINST HIS POLICY ON DRONE ATTACKS>





Paranoia Strikes Deep: A Cowering American still Haunted by Bin Laden’s Ghost (Engelhardt)

Posted on 02/06/2013 by Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com

Consider Inauguration Day, more than two weeks gone and already part of our distant past.  In its wake, President Obama was hailed (or reviled) for his “liberal” second inaugural address.  On that day everything from his invocation of women’s rights (“Seneca Falls”), the civil rights movement (“Selma”), and the gay rights movement (“Stonewall”) to his wife’s new bangs and Beyoncé’s lip-syncing was fodder for the media extravaganza.  The president was even praised (or reviled) for what he took pains not to bring up: the budget deficit.  Was anything, in fact, not grist for the media mill, the hordes of talking heads, and the chattering classes?

One subject, at least, got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and, when mentioned, certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling on.  Yet nothing better caught our changing American world.  Washington, after all, was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era — not even Lincoln’s second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War, or Franklin Roosevelt’s during World War II, or John F. Kennedy’s at the height of the Cold War.

Here’s how NBC Nightly News described some of the security arrangements as the day approached:

“[T]he airspace above Washington… [will be] a virtual no-fly zone for 30 miles in all directions from the U.S. capital.  Six miles of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers will be shut down, with 150 blocks of downtown Washington closed to traffic, partly out of concern for car or truck bombs… with counter-snipers on top of buildings around the capital and along the parade route… [and] detectors monitoring the air for toxins… At the ready near the capital, thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack… All this security will cost about $120 million dollars for hundreds of federal agents, thousands of local police, and national guardsmen from 25 states.”

Consider just the money.  It’s common knowledge that, until the recent deal over the renewal of the George W. Bush tax cuts for all but the richest of Americans, taxes had not been raised since the read-my-lips-no-new-taxes era of his father.  That’s typical of the way we haven’t yet assimilated the new world we find ourselves in.  After all, shouldn’t that $120 million in taxpayer money spent on “safety” and “security” for a single event in Washington be considered part of an ongoing Osama bin Laden tax?

Maybe it’s time to face the facts: this isn’t your grandfather’s America. Once, prospective Americans landed in a New World.  This time around, a new world’s landed on us.

Making Fantasy Into Reality

Bin Laden, of course, is long dead, but his was the 9/11 spark that, in the hands of George W. Bush and his top officials, helped turn this country into a lockdown state and first set significant portions of the Greater Middle East aflame.  In that sense, bin Laden has been thriving in Washington ever since and no commando raid in Pakistan or elsewhere has a chance of doing him in.

Since the al-Qaeda leader was aware of the relative powerlessness of his organization and its hundreds or, in its heyday, perhaps thousands of active followers, his urge was to defeat the U.S. by provoking its leaders into treasury-draining wars in the Greater Middle East.  In his world, it was thought that such a set of involvements — and the “homeland” security down payments that went with them — could bleed the richest, most powerful nation on the planet dry.  In this, he and his associates, imitators, and wannabes were reasonably canny.  The bin Laden tax, including that $120 million for Inauguration Day, has proved heavy indeed.

In the meantime, he — and 9/11 as it entered the American psyche — helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us all.  The resulting United States of Fear has since engaged in two disastrous more-than-trillion dollar wars and a “Global War on Terror” that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime. (See Yemen, Pakistan, and Mali.)  It has also funded the supersized growth of a labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy; that post-9/11 creation, the Department of Homeland Security; and, of course, the Pentagon and the U.S. military, including the special operations forces, an ever-expanding secret military elite cocooned within it.

Given the enemy at hand — not a giant empire, but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands — all of these institutions, which make up the post-9/11 National Security Complex, expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations (as would that most un-American of all words, “homeland”).  All of this, in turn, happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington, and much of the rest of the country.

Keep reading Paranoia Strikes Deep: A Cowering American still Haunted by Bin Laden's Ghost (Engelhardt)

To accept lawful killing by the US Government, you have to put complete trust in the competence, wisdom, and ethics of the president, his underlings, and their successors. You have to believe they are properly identifying people who pose an imminent (or quasi-imminent) threat to national security and killing them by blowing people up from a distance. To accept this you then accept that we do not need a Fifth Amendment, or the rest of the Constitution.

5 Disturbing Aspects of the DOJ White Paper on the President's License to Kill

Jacob Sullum|Feb. 4, 2013 11:29 pm REASON

The Justice Department white paper on "The Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa'ida or an Associated Force," noted earlier tonight by Mike Riggs, fills in the fine print of the license to kill claimed by President Obama in several ways, none of them reassuring. The main conclusion of the paper, which was obtained by NBC News, is that "it would be lawful for the United States to conduct a lethal operation outside the United States against a U.S. citizen who is a senior, operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force of al-Qa' ida without violating the Constitution or...federal statutes...under the following conditions: (1) an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is infeasible, and the United States continues to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and (3) the operation is conducted in a manner consistent with the four fundamental principles of the laws of war governing the use of force"—i.e., "necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity." Here are five points worth highlighting:

1. There may be other situations in which the president believes he has the authority to order the death of someone he perceives as an enemy. As the Justice Department repeatedly warns, "This paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful, nor does it assess what might be required to render a lethal operation against a U.S. citizen lawful in other circumstances."

2. The determination of whether someone is in fact "a senior, operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force" is made entirely within the executive branch, presumably by the same "informed, high-level official" who decides whether the target is an imminent threat.

3. The "imminent threat" determination is not really a distinct step in the process of authorizing summary execution by drone. "The condition that an operational leader present an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future," the paper explains. For example, "where the al-Qa'ida member in question has recently been involved in activities posing an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, and there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities, that member's involvement in al-Qa'ida's continuing terrorist campaign against the United States would support the conclusion that the member poses an imminent threat." In other words, identifying someone as a current or past operational leader is pretty much the same as deciding he poses an imminent threat.

4. Although the requirement that capture be "infeasible" could be read as ruling out drone attacks within the United States or in friendly countries willing and able to assist in the apprehension of suspected terrorists, the paper identifies no geographic limit on lethal strikes against people deemed to be imminent threats. It explicitly rejects the notion that attacks should be limited to "the zone of active hostilities." (Hence the drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.) As for obtaining permission from the government of the country where the target is located, the paper says "a lethal operation in a foreign country would be consistent with international legal principles of sovereignty and neutrality if it were conducted, for example, with the consent of the host nation's government or after a determination that the host nation is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted." In other words, firing missiles at a suspected terrorist is permissible under international law only if the host nation's government 1) agrees to allow the attack or 2) refuses to allow the attack.

5. Although permission from the host nation's government clearly is not required for a drone attack, the white paper says capture may be deemed "infeasible" if "the relevant country were to decline to consent to a capture operation." The president also may decide to kill rather than capture if he believes the latter would pose "undue risk to U.S. personnel." And lest you think that the determination of whether death by drone is justified would benefit from a second opinion, the white paper notes that "feasibility would be a highly fact-specific and potentially time-sensitive inquiry"—i.e., not the sort of thing anyone outside the executive branch should be second-guessing.

More generally, the white paper fleshes out the Obama administration's argument that U.S. citizens killed by drones are getting all the process that is appropriate in the circumstances; hence the Fifth Amendment, though implicated, is not violated. And since these targeted killings are lawful acts of self-defense, the Justice Department says, they do not violate the law against killing U.S. nationals in foreign countries or the executive order banning assassination. After all, "A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination." Duh,

The problem is that to accept this position, you have to put complete trust in the competence, wisdom, and ethics of the president, his underlings, and their successors. You have to believe they are properly defining and inerrantly identifying people who pose an imminent (or quasi-imminent) threat to national security and eliminating that threat through the only feasible means, which involves blowing people up from a distance. If mere mortals deserved that kind of faith, we would not need a Fifth Amendment, or the rest of the Constitution.

Today, the Arctic is characterised by a mixture of cooperation, competition, and conflicts of interest. There are indications that the growing presence of non-Arctic players prompts more cooperation among the coastal states. The Arctic is also the scene of overarching geo-strategic competition and conflict.

Players: Diverse interests

Three different groups of countries with an interest in the Arctic can be identified today: first, the five coastal states already mentioned above; second, the coastal states plus Finland, Iceland, and Sweden, which combine into the eight Arctic nations exercising sovereign rights within the Arctic Circle; and third, a heterogeneous group of non-Arctic states such as China, India, South Korea, and a number of European countries that have asserted various interests in raw materials, research, shipping routes, and Arctic infrastructure.

Of the five coastal states, Russia and Norway attach strategic importance to the Arctic. Moscow views the Arctic from an energy perspective as well as in geostrategic terms. Russia’s best access to the Atlantic and the Pacific is from the Arctic Ocean. If the ice cap of the Arctic were to lose its importance as a natural barrier, this would enormously spur Moscow’s maritime ambitions. However, any such ambitions are impeded by persistent legal uncertainties, limited administrative capacities, and a lack of technology. An interesting aspect of Russia’s Arctic policy is that the Russian elite tries to use “Northernness” as an element of identity-building in an effort to define Russia as distinct from the West and from Asia. Yet, this is a largely abstract endeavour, as only 1.5 per cent of Russians are living in the Arctic. Unlike Scandinavian countries, Russian society does not have a particularly Northern identity.

For Norway, the Arctic is of relevance in security terms as well as economically. The massive Russian military presence in the Arctic is located near Norway’s northeastern border. Oslo’s response to this has been a mixture of deterrence, reassurance through NATO, and cooperation with Moscow. From an economic viewpoint, Arctic gas and oil are priorities for the world’s second-largest gas exporter, as fields further south are becoming depleted. In this respect, Norway is in the comfortable position of being a world leader in offshore extraction technology. The Arctic’s importance for Norway also stems from the fact that one-third of its territory (inhabited by almost ten per cent of the Norwegian population) lies north of the Arctic Circle.

For Canada, the changes in the Arctic constitute a major challenge. The country’s Arctic territories are thinly populated and, accordingly, hardly developed. Canadian politicians also try to use “Northernness” as an identity-building factor, with the public showing a high sensitivity for Arctic sovereignty issues. But Canada has been reluctant to invest the resources that would be necessary to enhance its presence in the Arctic and implement its grand development schemes for the region. With regard to Denmark, the problems of the Arctic are determined above all by its relationship with Greenland, which – although belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark – enjoys a large degree of autonomy and may possibly seek independence in the future. Denmark accordingly seeks to increase its activity in the Arctic so as to make the case for Greenland’s association with the Kingdom. As for the US, some interest in the Arctic has been aroused, especially among oil companies. The possible opening of new Arctic shipping routes has also been on the agenda in Washington, but truly strategic interests have not been linked to the region so far.

The other three Arctic countries are unable to influence developments to the same extent as the coastal states. They are, however, taking great interest in the political processes of the region and their multilateralisation. Accordingly, they are especially intent on pointing out new “soft” security concerns, such as increased environmental dangers, and are highlighting the advantages of international cooperation in this respect. In the light of the new opportunities in the Arctic, an increasing number of non-Arctic states are also attempting to mark their presence in the region. In this regard, China, India, and South Korea have established research stations at Svalbard over the past decade. They expect their research activities to give them a greater say in Arctic matters. South Korea already has a modern icebreaker at its disposal, while China has bought a used icebreaker and is building a new one. Beijing emphasises access to raw materials as an important determining factor of its Arctic policy. India, for its part, is claiming scientific interest. For South Korea, the interests of its own shipbuilding industry are pivotal, since it already controls many specialist European shipyards and sees new business opportunities. Just like most European governments and the EU, these non-Arctic players make the case for multilateral governance in the Arctic as a means of safeguarding their respective interests.

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The Geopolitics of the Arctic Commons
The Arctic: Thaw With Conflict Potential
Publications 
July 2012 ISN SWITZERLAND
The Arctic: Thaw With Conflict Potential


Climate change continues to expose the natural wealth and economic potential of the Arctic region. Today, we look at how the Arctic states are attempting to manage access to this commons, and we consider the potential for conflict over exploitation rights and transportation routes.

By Jonas Grätz for Center for Security Studies (CSS)

Until just a few years ago, the Arctic attracted little international attention. To be sure, this enormous territory of 21 million square kilometres between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle was of considerable importance to the navies of both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, since they could conveniently hide their submarines under the thick ice shield. Also, the shortest flight trajectories for intercontinental ballistic missiles between North America and the Russian mainland are across the North Pole. All the same, the Arctic remained a marginal region in global politics and economics. Being sparsely populated with about 4 million inhabitants on account of its harsh natural environment, it barely made headlines.

The recently surging interest in the Arctic has much to do with climate change. The Arctic did experience periodic warming and cooling phases in the past, but its surface temperature has been rising steadily over the last 45 years. Since measurements began in 1979, the sea ice has been shrinking. This development is set to continue. Recent projections predict ice-free summers for the 2030s.

Even though problems such as persistent darkness and extreme cold in winter will remain, the melting of the ice mass in the Arctic is associated with both economic and strategic opportunities. Of particular interest are the deposits of raw material in the Arctic and the opening of shorter shipping routes. Unsurprisingly, these new possibilities are whetting the appetite of a growing number of states.

The crowding of non-Arctic players into this region is strengthening the incentives for cooperation among the Arctic coastal states (Denmark, Canada, Norway, Russia, and the US). But there are also new causes for conflict, in particular regarding the lack of agreement on territorial sovereignty issues in certain regions. With the changes in the Arctic and its growing international importance, the coastal states also face new challenges in terms of national defence.

Oil and gas

The Arctic mainland is believed to hold vast deposits of mineral resources. Current debates are largely focusing on the oil and gas reserves, however, for which more precise estimates are available. The US Geological Survey reckons that the Arctic’s share in the global conventional resources yet to be found amounts to 13 per cent for crude oil and 30 per cent for natural gas. These resources are probably offshore for the most part (84 per cent). Of the Arctic’s natural gas resources, 70 per cent are attributed to the Russian exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Large gas fields have already been discovered in this 200-nautical-mile zone off the coast line, where the littoral nation holds exclusive exploitation rights.

There is no reliable information on regions outside the EEZs of the coastal states at this stage. The probability of the presence of large oil and gas reserves outside these zones is very low, however, according to current geological knowledge. Most of the presumed fields thus appear to be located within the existing EEZs – which reduces the potential for conflict.

Despite the changing climate, economic activity in the Arctic region will continue to involve high exploitation and transportation costs and considerable environmental risks. The warming of the Arctic will admittedly lead to an enlarged ice-free ocean area in summer and a prolonged ice-free period, but climate change will also bring about more frequent weather extremes such as storms and increasing iceberg drift. Oil and gas extraction in the Arctic Ocean and transportation of the raw materials will continue to prove very difficult even in littoral areas due to both economic and technological obstacles.

The boom of unconventional oil and gas in more temperate regions (see Strategic Trends 2012 ) adds further doubts as to the profitability of Arctic extraction. Indeed, there are cases where the development of already explored fields (such as the Shtokman field or the gas reserves of the Beaufort Sea) has been repeatedly postponed. Nevertheless, the depletion of resources in non-Arctic regions will likely prompt some countries increasingly to exploit Arctic oil and gas.

Shorter trade routes

The changing climate also brings about new opportunities for Arctic shipping along the Russian and North American coasts, which are increasingly ice-free during summertime. In particular, this applies to the North East Passage across the Russian Arctic, where favourable sea currents result in a thinner ice cap. Both routes would shorten the distance from Europe to Asia by about one third and would allow circumventing shipping lanes threatened by piracy. If the ice cap were to melt away completely in the summer months, an even shorter route directly across the North Pole is conceivable that would involve less complex conditions of navigation.

The new routes are not only of interest from an economic viewpoint, but also have the potential to fundamentally change the framework of naval strategy. Traditional choke points, such as the Strait of Malacca or the Suez Canal, may lose some of their strategic importance. Conversely, the significance of the Bering Strait would increase. As a result, European and Asian navies could gain in flexibility.

Despite these promising perspectives, it is worth noting that the use of the northern routes still faces numerous problems. These include a lack of navigation aids, inadequate coastal infrastructure, and the poor predictability of ice drift and storms.The ensuing uncertainties regarding route planning and transit times do not meet the just-in-time requirements of globalised production chains. Improving the infrastructure and developing Arctic naval capabilities will require a long timeframe and will not be feasible without a clear balance between national and international jurisdictions and stable national legal frameworks.

Shotgun Barack

BREITBART

The White House has released a picture purporting to show President Obama "skeet shooting" at Camp David.  An activity he claims he does "all the time."

The White House also warns all you mischievous internet types to not mess around with the picture: 

"This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.”

But  the photo released by the White House is actually a government photoshop. In fact Obama has been a closet reenactor for some time. He often plays Robert E. Lee at Camp David but also enjoys playing under the pseudonym of  Brigadier Barracks O’Bama. 

I could not find a photo of him dressed as General Lee or the Brigadier but I did find a photo of him rehearsing with some colonial reenactors. Obama was fresh off Marine One and is such an avid shooter and  arriving a little late  from chilling at some burger stand, he could not wait to change and got into the action in his street clothes:

Qatar’s foreign policy, as Saudi is motivated by religion. Success in Mali would greatly increase the Emirate’s influence in West Africa and the Sahel region. Qatari influence in Mali must be seen in the context of two branches of a global competition with Saudi Arabia to be the centre of Sunni Islam and competition between the Sunni and Shiite branches of the Muslim faith. It is an extension of the effort Qatar is already making in Egypt, Libya and in Tunisia.

Is Qatar fueling the crisis in north Mali?

Oil-rich gulf state Qatar has a vested interest in the outcome of the north Mali crisis, according to various reports that have been picked up by French MPs, amid suspicion that Doha may be siding with the rebels to extend its regional influence.

FRANCE 24

By Mark Thompson (video)

Ségolène ALLEMANDOU (text)

Since Islamist groups exploited a military coup in the Malian capital of Bamako in early 2012 to take control of the entire north of the country, accusations of Qatari involvement in a crisis that has seen France deploy troops have been growing.

Last week two French politicians explicitly accused Qatar of giving material support to separatists and Islamists in north Mali, adding fuel to speculation that the Emirate is playing a behind-the-scenes role in spreading Islamic fundamentalism in Africa.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Communist Party Senator Michelle Demessine both said that that Qatar had questions to answer.

“If Qatar is objecting to France’s engagement in Mali it’s because intervention risks destroying Doha’s most fundamentalist allies,” Le Pen said in a statement on her party website, in response to a call by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani for dialogue with the Islamists.

‘Cash from Doha’

The first accusations of Qatari involvement with Tuareg separatists and Islamist groups came in a June 2012 article in respected French weekly the Canard Enchainé.

In a piece title “Our friend Qatar is financing Mali’s Islamists”, the newspaper alleged that the oil-rich Gulf state was financing the separatists.

It quoted an unnamed source in French military intelligence saying: “The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.”

A month later Sadou Diallo, the mayor of the north Malian city of Gao [which had fallen to the Islamists] told RTL radio: “The French government knows perfectly well who is supporting these terrorists. Qatar, for example, continues to send so-called aid and food every day to the airports of Gao and Timbuktu.”

The presence of Qatari NGOs in north Mali is no secret. Last summer, in the wake of the separatist takeover, the Qatari Red Crescent was the only humanitarian organisation granted access to the vast territory.

One member of the Qatari humanitarian team told AFP at the end of June that they had simply “come to Gao to evaluate the humanitarian needs of the region in terms of water and electricity access.”

Deeply entrenched

Regional geopolitical expert Mehdi Lazar, who specialises on Qatar, wrote in French weekly news magazine L’Express in December that Doha’s relationship with predominantly Muslim north Mali was deeply entrenched.

“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment.

“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.”

Qatar’s foreign policy is also motivated by religion, wrote Lazar, and success in Mali would “greatly increase the Emirate’s influence in West Africa and the Sahel region”.

“If the Qatari influence in the current situation in Mali turns out to be real, it must be seen in the context of two branches of a global competition,” he wrote. “Firstly, competition with Saudi Arabia to be the centre of Sunni Islam; secondly, in terms of competition between the Sunni and Shiite branches of the Muslim faith.

“It would be an extension of the effort Qatar is already making in Egypt, Libya and in Tunisia.”

Lazar does not believe, however, that Qatar will get directly involved in the conflict unfolding in Mali, however, and that rather than getting its hands dirty, Doha will try to position itself as mediator in future negotiations between the Malian government, the various rebel groups in the north of the country, Algeria and France.

"The confirmation hearing in the Senate for Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was painful to watch because it displayed the tomfoolery, pretense, self-righteous know-nothingism, and embarrassing lack of contact with reality that dominate the landscape of America’s broken democracy. It was like watching a Nebraska ordinary Joe set upon by circus freaks– a phalanx of moral midgets, stalking cat-men, vicious lobster boys and ethical werewolves.”

Chuck Hagel Mauled in Bizarro World of US Senate

Posted on 02/01/2013 by Juan Cole

Those who regretted that Hagel seldom stood his ground, often just deflected persnickety questions, and sometimes was made to recite the catechisms of Neoconservative orthodoxy, should remember that what is important in Washington is willingness to conform orally, regardless of what one actually believes or how one acts. Hagel might agree to look like he is being pushed around by his former colleagues, for the sake of their face and his. He won’t agree actually to be pushed around once he is in office.

Ted Cruz, a Texas tea partier who probably won’t be there after Texas turns blue in a few years, tried to carry out a Fox News-style ambush of Hagel. He played a 2009 Aljazeera interview of Hagel on the issue of nuclear disarmament.

At one point a caller called in from London with a rambling statement, who made an argument that there is a double standard, with the US and its allies free from international law on things like possessing and using nuclear weapons, whereas other countries are held to stricter standard. He said that this unequal application of the law was clear in that Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, had been convicted of war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court, but Israeli leaders, who had committed war crimes against the Palestinians, had been held harmless. He went on rambling, complaining about alleged war crimes the Sri Lankan government committed against the Tamil Tigers, then the host asked him for a question and to finish up. When Hagel responded, he began by saying he agreed with the caller’s point. It is obvious to me that he was agreeing that there had been a double standard, and he later said it should be overcome with regard to nuclear disarmament by the US and Russia taking the lead to reduce stockpiles. The caller had a thick accent and it wasn’t even clear that Hagel understood everything he said in his rant, much less meant to agree with it. Is Cruz saying that Hagel was agreeing about Sri Lanka, too?

The relevant bit begins at 6:26 minutes in:

Cruz insisted that Hagel should have disagreed with the caller about Israel having committed war crimes, given that Jews were victims of war crimes. Cruz is a truly bright and energetic man, with a Princeton education, who clerked for Rehnquist. He knows very well that he is lying about Hagel. And he knows that Israel is guilty of plenty of war crimes. He managed to make Hagel deny this obvious fact, however. Cruz’s performance underlines the importance of Christian Zionism in reinforcing the crackpot conviction in the US senate that it is impossible ever to say anything slightly negative about Israeli policy (the only country in the world so exempted).

Ironically, Cruz’s implausible grandstanding occurred on the same day when, as the New York Times headline put it, “U.N. Panel Says Israeli Settlement Policy Violates Law ”

Or how about “UN mission finds evidence of war crimes by both sides in Gaza conflict.”

In fact, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni for her role in launching the attack on Gaza in 2008-9, and it is not clear that she can travel to the UK without fear of arrest. The charge, Senator Cruz? War crimes.

Ah, and then there is Lindsey Graham, the Red Queen of the Senate (who is the essence of the pedantic governess and asks through-the-looking-glass questions like: “Divide a loaf by a knife: what’s the answer to that?”).

Graham wanted to know why Hagel voted against the 2007 senate resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization.

The reason that was a dumb resolution is that terrorism is defined in the US civil code as the deployment of violence by a non-state actor against civilians for political purposes. Since the Revolutionary Guards are a kind of Iranian national guard, they are not a non-state actor. They are therefore not a terrorist organization. They may deploy terror, but it is state terror. (The senate also said they were terrorists because they were guilty of killing US troops in Iraq. First of all, there is no evidence that is true. Second of all, killing troops is not terrorism, it is an act of war). Graham’s position is illogical and makes a hash of any reasonable definition of terrorism.

Graham wants to pile on illogical charges against Iran and its institutions in order to force the US into a war on that country, which is 3 times more populous and much more geographically vast than Iraq. Because, like, Iraq went so well, I guess.

Then the Red Queen went after Hagel for having said that the “Jewish lobby” intimidates people. He demanded, “Name one person here who’s been intimidated by the Jewish lobby . . . Name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing due to pressure by the Israeli or Jewish lobby.”

Hagel said he didn’t have anyone in mind.

The irony, of course, is that Graham is himself part of the Israel lobby, and there he was intimidating Hagel for complaining about having been intimidated!

All the congressmen and senators know that the Israel lobby intimidates them or tries to, on a daily basis. Ernst Hollings complained, “you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.” AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the de facto foreign agent of the Israeli government in the United States, which gets away with not having to register as such because it has bought off or intimidated Congress. 22-year Illinois veteran of congress Paul Findley has also complained about this. And, just read former AIPAC lobbyis M.J. Rosenberg regularly to get the inside scoop on how AIPAC pressures Congress, including against the president. As Graham knows, there is a whole book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the Israel lobbies, which will soon be supplemented by further publications documenting all the … intimidation. The Israel lobbies work by threatening to give money to a rival in the next primary or election. Since races in many districts are close, and since there is no wealthy, organized lobby for the Palestinians or Arabs, it is crazy for a US politician to risk AIPAC’s ire. AIPAC doesn’t always win, and recognizing its effectiveness as a lobby is not to buy into the bigotted notion of Jews secretly controlling Gentiles. In fact, denying that the Israel lobby exists is not only willful blindness, it is itself a form of anti-Semitism, since such a denial depicts Jews as inherently unlike Cubans, Armenians, Indians, Latinos and all the other ethnic groups that lobby Congress.

The long arm of these lobbies is something about which I have a little personal experience.

Senator John McCain then attacked Hagel for having predicted that the surge or troop escalation ordered by George W. Bush would be a huge mistake. The Iraq War was fought under false pretenses (that the Saddam Hussein regime was two years from having a nuclear weapon and had big stores of biological and chemical weapons, and that it was behind the 9/11 attacks and trained al-Qaeda in the use of chemical weapons– all of these pretexts for war being wretched, bald-faced lies). The Neocons promised McCain’s committee a short inexpensive war of $60 billion, over within 6 months. Instead it turned into a quagmire that cost thousands of American lives and some 33,000 badly injured veterans who lead diminished lives. McCain was a cheerleader for the war, then a skeptic, then a cheerleader, and now he has decided that the troop escalation was a success.

If the ‘surge’ was a success, it was a minor one in a vast and pockmarked terrain of abject failure. But there are plenty of reasons to question the David Petraeus narrative of a successful surge. In Baghdad, the horrible civil war that killed tens of thousands in 2006 gradually subsided through 2007 mainly because the Shiites ethnically cleansed Sunnis from mixed neighborhoods. The US troop escalation was complicit here because it disarmed the Sunni neighborhood militias first, exposing them to night-time attacks by the still-armed Mahdi Army and Badr Corps. I have talked to Iraq vets who were on the ground and saw this process unfold with their own eyes; they say everyone knew that was what was happening. The turning of Baghdad into a largely Shiite city, while it tamped down violence, could hardly be called a big success (it had been about 50/50 Sunni and Shiite in 2002 before the Americans came).

The other element of the surge was the creation in al-Anbar Province and elsewhere of “Awakening Councils” or “Sons of Iraq,” essentially clan-based Sunni Arab militias willing to fight the Sunni-Muslim radicals who had asserted themselves in the Sunni Arab center-west of the country. Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki opposed this program, which resulted in 80,000 armed Sunni militiamen, as a threat to the future public order in Iraq. After the violence began subsiding somewhat, he declined to bring more than about 9,000 of the Sons of Iraq into government security forces. The others were either cut off altogether or given small stipends. Some were hunted down and killed by the Muslim radicals, once they no longer had the protection of being in an organized unit. Some of the Sons of Iraq had been terrorists in 2005-2006, and al-Maliki refused to amnesty them, having them arrested and tried.

The big news from Iraq these days is precisely the continued discontent of Sunni Arab Iraqis, some of them (like the Abu Rishas) from families that had joined the Awakening Councils. They are demanding increased stipends for their service under Petraeus, demanding that hundreds of Sunni Arab youth arrested arbitrarily be released, demanding that the stigmatization of Sunni Arabs and the barring of them from public service be ended, and demanding that the pro-Iran, pro-Syrian, Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, step down.

So the “surge” didn’t account for the decline of violence in Baghdad, and its Awakening Councils created as many problems as they solved, and created expectations that continue to roil Iraqi politics and perhaps threaten a break-up of the country.

I’d say Chuck Hagel got it about right.

WHERE IS HAGEL WRONG? 
BACKGROUND ON US SANCTIONS PROGRAMS:

LONDON – A bomb has been detonated outside the U.S. embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara killing at least two people, according to police officials. An Associated Press journalist reported Friday seeing a body in the street in front of an embassy side entrance. It was not immediately clear what the cause of the blast was, but police now think a suicide bomber is to blame. It is also not clear how many people are injured. The two dead are thought to be security guards.

BACKGROUND:

Ten years ago, 1 February 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up during reentry.

How the Columbia shuttle disaster changed spacecraft safety forever

By Clara Moskowitz

Published January 30, 2013

Space.com

Ten years after the devastating Columbia space shuttle accident that took the lives of seven astronauts, NASA is building a new spacecraft that will take humans farther into space than ever before, and will incorporate the safety lessons learned from the disaster that befell the agency Feb. 1, 2003.

That day, the shuttle Columbia was returning from a 16-day trip to space devoted to science research. But what began as a routine re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere ended disastrously as the orbiter disintegrated about 200,000 feet over Texas.

Later analysis found that Columbia was doomed during its launch, when a small bit of foam insulation broke off the shuttle's external fuel tank and tore a hole in the orbiter's wing. That hole prevented Columbia from withstanding the scorching heat of re-entry.

Afterward, the independent team that investigated the accident, called the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), found a number of factors, from the safety culture at NASA to the design of the shuttle, that led to the disaster. [Photos: The Columbia Space Shuttle Tragedy]

'It's especially important to us that were here during the Columbia accident, because they were our friends, too.'

- Dustin Gohmert, NASA crew survival engineering team lead

All of the lessons the agency learned were incorporated into every subsequent flight NASA flew, and are now being used to inform the design of its next-generation spaceship, Orion. That vehicle is slated to carry people to asteroids, the moon and Mars sometime in the mid-2020s.

"We're hoping nothing ever goes wrong, but if it does, we've taken every possible step to keep the crew safe and give them every possible fighting chance they can have," said Dustin Gohmert, NASA crew survival engineering team lead, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “It's especially important to us that were here during the Columbia accident, because they were our friends, too."

Race car seats and children’s seatbelts

The Columbia investigation exposed a number of flaws in the design of the shuttle's crew cabin, including its seats, seatbelts, spacesuits and life support system. Each of these has been redesigned for Orion.

"The seats were one of the weaker links during the Columbia accident," Gohmert told SPACE.com. “We wanted to make these seats formfitting so they had a true fit to the body's shape."

NASA looked to the formfitting seats used in professional race vcars, which provide even support to every part of the body, offering extreme cushioning and shock absorption during a crash. Orion designers even fine-tuned the vibration frequency of the seats to have different resonances than the internal organs of a human body.

The engineers also redesigned the seatbelts, which were another issue during Columbia's flight. Here, they took inspiration from the belts on children’s car seats, which are adjustable to fit a wide range of body sizes.

"We wanted an exact fit for every single person who could fit in the vehicle, from females down to 4'10" and males up to 6'4"," Gohmert said. “It was quite a challenge."

Suiting up

The astronaut spacesuits were also completely redesigned for Orion. The Columbia investigation board found that the crewmembers didn't have time to configure their suits to protect against depressurization, which occurred rapidly. In fact, some of the astronauts were not wearing their safety gloves, and one didn't even have a helmet on, because of how quickly the accident took place. [Columbia Shuttle Disaster Explained (Infographic)]

“In the case of Orion, the suits will instantaneously, and without any action of the crew, inflate and protect from the loss of pressure," Gohmert said.

The capsule life support system was also upgraded to provide a constant flow of oxygen to the crew, even with their helmet visors up and locked, which wasn't possible in the shuttle.

Each of these changes addresses flaws exposed by the Columbia shuttle disaster. Yet Gohmert said none of these upgrades alone would have made a difference during the disaster.

"I caution against saying that any one thing we've corrected would have protected against the outcome," he said. "However, we examined all the lethal events that occurred in Columbia and addressed each of them in the Orion. We’re doing a whole lot of things to make it safer, and everything we've learned from the shuttle accidents, from Russian space accidents, automobile accidents — we've taken lessons from all of them and tried to incorporate them into Orion."

Capsule vs. space plane

Perhaps the largest change from shuttle to Orion is the shift from a winged space plane design to the cone-shaped capsule, which sits atop the rocket rather than next to it. 

"When we went to the capsule, we went from a side-mounted spacecraft to a forward-mounted one," said Julie Kramer White, Orion chief engineer. "Therefore, it's not exposed to debris environments, which was obviously a huge issue for Columbia."

This configuration also allows the crew compartment of the capsule to be ejected from the top of the rocket stack in the case of an emergency on the launch pad or during liftoff. Such an escape would not have been possible for the crew cabin of the space shuttle.

Of course, the shuttle had capabilities that no capsule has — namely, the ability to haul large, heavy cargos, such as the building blocks of the International Space Station, inside its cargo bay, White pointed out.

Moreover, the culture of safety at NASA has changed for the better since the days of Columbia, Gohmert said.

"The reaction has been very positive around all of NASA in terms of giving us the capacity to make these safety improvements," he said. "Previously, it was difficult to implement some of the safety features as we'd hoped. Now it really is on the forefront of everyone's mind."